The Last Marauder
by WerewolfDoctor
Summary: Remus Lupin's thoughts and feelings as he prepares to take up his post as Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor.


All my adult life I had struggled on the edge of poverty. It was hard enough to get a job at all, let alone keeping one for any amount of time. Even with the invention of Wolfsbane Potion people still distrusted and feared werewolves. For the millionth time I wished James and Lily were still alive, that Sirius had not betrayed us and that Peter had not been such a fool as to go after him. Although it hurt my pride somewhat, they had always been ready to give me a bed for the night, and food when I needed it, even during the war. Of course, that was the least of the reasons I regarded them my closest friends, but you tend to miss food when you haven't had it in days.

Now though, I was the last of the Marauders, what had once seemed indestructible, we four friends who did not care that I was a werewolf, that Sirius was a Black, that James had an unhealthy obsession with Quidditch and later, Lily, and that Peter wasn't quite as clever as the rest of us. We four who would do anything for each other, who were as close as brothers, or so I thought, were now broken. Two dead, three, including Lily, and I really should include Lily. One insane inside Azkaban and me, one tired, battered werewolf.

Except, all was not quite lost, James and Lily were survived by Harry and it was for that reason that I agreed to face the past and return to Hogwarts as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. For it was that year that Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban and I was determined to protect Harry from his godfather.

Professor McGonagall, (after all these years it's hard to think of her as anything other than Professor McGonagall, even if I am no longer a student) arrived at my house sometime before term started. She proceeded to, in true McGonagall style without any fuss or fluster, inform me of Professor Dumbledore's wish to take me on as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It was a strange feeling; I suppose I should have been surprised, there are not many people who would take a werewolf on, especially as a teacher, but Dumbledore has always been one to trust where others wouldn't. He let me come to Hogwarts as a child when no other Headmaster would, he persuaded the then Headmaster Armando Dippet to keep on Hagrid as a gamekeeper after he had been expelled. No, it was not Dumbledore's trust that made me curious, but the timing of it. Dumbledore always had more than one reason for doing things, and he kept his reasons and plans close to his chest. Living with Dumbledore was living never quite knowing why you were doing a certain thing but knowing there was a reason and knowing it was a good reason. No doubt Dumbledore had vast and complex reasons as to why he wanted me to teach this particular year, however I could think of one large and obvious one.

"Is this because of Sirius Black?" I asked, almost choking on the name.

"Partially," admitted McGonagall, "but mainly because you were a brilliant student and we seem to get through these Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers like wildfire," she finished with a wry half smile. I grinned, I had heard of the legendary jinx on the post, even watched in action during my time as a student. "No doubt you will realise," she continued, "that this means that there is a strong likelihood that you will only remain at Hogwarts for a single year, although we do, of course, hope you will stay for longer."

"I realise," I replied.

"Whilst you are at Hogwarts our Potions Master will brew you Wolfsbane Potion," she continued and I have to say that at that point it was hard not to keep a manic smile off my face. Wolfsbane Potion was devilishly tricky to make and as such I had never managed to make some myself, but the few times I had managed to get my hands on the potion my transformations had been painless and best of all, I had remained myself and in control of my actions. A whole year with Wolfsbane Potion seemed like bliss. Professor McGonagall gave one of her small, rare, smiles. She must have known how much the potion would mean to me, she had been instrumental to my 'arrangements' as a child after all. She seemed to hesitate slightly, before looking me straight in the eye and said, "The Potions Master is Severus Snape,"

"I have no grudge against Sn- Severus," I assured her, "but I don't think I could say the same for him," She nodded.

"If that is all I shall see you on September 1st."

"No," I almost shouted, "tell me- tell me about Harry," she gave a small smile and I got the impression that she was very fond of Harry, in her own way.

"He's the exact image of James, except for his eyes, he has Lily's eyes, and he's been told it by practically everybody who's ever met him," she exuded a fierce, almost maternal pride as she continued, "in his first year he prevented V-Voldemort from returning to power and was braver than any eleven year old should have to be, braver than most adults I know, along with his two friends, Ron and Hermione. He also became the youngest Quidditch player in a century after he broke some rules and caught a rememberall after a fifty foot dive, despite never having been on a broom before," she glanced at me, as if warning me not to question this blatant disregard of the rules on her part.

"In his second year he once again saved the school and lives, along with Ron and Hermione," she paused for a moment, as if to collect her thoughts, "he has James' talent for trouble, though he doesn't revel in it like James did. He has none of James' arrogance and I miss it. The muggles who brought him up, Lily's sister and her family, treated him abysmally. They thought he was some kind of freak and, to put it plainly, they abused him Remus." She paused again, "Should we have fought for him Remus? Whilst he was at his Aunt's he lived under the blood protection but should that have been the only deciding factor? We could have protected him elsewhere, especially whilst He was not at full power, why did it have to be there? I remember when I first saw him in his first year, small and undernourished, looking like all his dreams had come true." She shifted slightly, the slight helplessness she had shown was now gone again.

"What this means is that Harry is obsessed with his parents. The highest praise you can give is that his parents would have been proud, or that his parents would have acted in the same way. In his first year, during some," here she exuded the faintest note of disapproval, "night time excursions he came across the Mirror of Erised and he saw himself, surrounded by his family. That is his deepest desire. It is for this reason that whilst Harry has been informed that Black is after him, in the vain hope he will not get into the same kind of trouble this year, he has not been informed that it was Black who betrayed his parents. He would, despite only being a thirteen year old boy, attempt to go after Black himself." I understood. I had been determined to go after Sirius but Peter and the Ministry got there first. It wouldn't have done any good anyway; I had never won in a duel against Sirius. Harry wouldn't have a chance against him.

I arranged to get to Hogwarts by the Hogwarts Express, although the train was usually reserved for students, I couldn't help but relive my school days. I arrived early and chose the compartment nearest the end of the train; the compartment the Marauders always took as it the one furthest away from the prefect compartment. Teachers normally get to Hogwarts earlier than the students of course, but I had been delayed by the full moon and so Professor Dumbledore- Albus agreed to let me use the train. It also gave me chance to catch up on some much needed sleep.

I had been drifting in and out of sleep for some time when a group of students, obviously finding no other free compartments, entered mine. I allowed my eyes to flicker open for a second and almost jolted in surprise, those eyes, that face. I had not expected- not so soon, because how could he be anything other that James and Lily's son? He was talking to two other students, who I assumed were the Ron and Hermione that Mc- Minerva had mentioned. I decided to fake sleep, contented just to listen to them talk.

"Who d'you reckon he is?" Ron hissed.

"Professor R. J. Lupin," replied Hermione at once, giving the distinct impression that she was used to telling Harry and Ron things they should already know as she pointed out my bag, perched on the luggage rack above my head. Hermione reminded me almost painfully of me, being the 'sensible' one in the trio. I would also be willing to bet everything I owned that she had read, and memorised iHogwarts: A History/i along with all her textbooks.

"Wonder what he teaches?" said Ron.

"That's obvious," whispered Hermione. "There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Well, I hope he's up to it, he looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn't he?" iif only you knew/i I thought. I was still feeling the effects of the full moon, and although I could hold my own against any hex I was not feeling my best to say the least. "Anyway," said Ron, clearly finished with discussing me, for which I was faintly relieved, "what were you going to tell us?"

"Well," Harry said, "you know when I went to fetch the Rat Tonic Ron?" at this Ron must have nodded, "I overheard Mr and Mrs Weasley arguing," Ron made a small sound and I almost smiled. So Ron was one of the Weasley boys, well, I had glimpsed red hair when I had opened my eyes earlier, "apparently, Sirius Black escaped Azkaban to come after me, to kill me." Harry paused, allowing this to sink in, "Mr Weasley wanted to tell me but Mrs Weasley didn't," Harry paused again and took a deep breath, "he can't be worse than Voldemort can he? And Dumbledore's supposed to be the only one Voldemort ever feared, I don't suppose Black would be much different. The oddest thing is, Mr Weasley was going to tell me all this at the station but I told him I already knew. Then he told me not to go looking for Black, no matter what I heard." Silence fell in the compartment and I was reminded of what Minerva told me, that if Harry knew the truth about Sirius he would attempt to hunt him down himself. Mr Weasley obviously thought that Harry would eventually find out the truth, whether people wanted him to or not. I hid a grin; he was obviously a lot like James.

"Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh Harry ... you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry..." Hermione said, her voice shaky.

"I don't go looking for trouble," said Harry, nettled, "trouble usually finds me," in that it seemed, Harry was obviously very different to James, although Harry's particular brand of trouble seemed to be rather more life threatening than James'.

"How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?" said Ron. Harry had no answer, it seemed he had hoped that they would take the news that there was a bloodthirsty lunatic determined to kill him better than they had. As Harry had said, they had faced worse after all. "No one knows how he got out of Azkaban," Ron continued, trying to justify his fear, but his voice seemed to fade away as a terrible thought struck me.

Dementors can't sense or affect animals like they can humans, that's why inmates who are known animagi have all sorts of spells and enchantments put on their cell to stop them transforming, but if they didn't know he was an animagus, if he could still change ... No, that can't be how he did it. Reduced senses they may have, but the Dementors would have still noticed a dog slipping away from his cell, besides, there's more to Azkaban to walls and Dementors. It must have been Dark magic, so dark that normal, sane people don't even know about it. Magic that was probably taught to him by Voldemort himself. Should I tell Dumbledore? No, it wouldn't make a difference anyway, nothing can get into to Hogwarts without Hogwarts permission, especially not now with all the extra defences they're putting in place. Besides, how could I admit that I had betrayed his trust all those years ago? Dumbledore's trust meant, still means, everything to me; if I lost it ... I shivered at the thought and turned my attention back to Harry, Ron and Hermione's conversation that had, thankfully, turned to the upcoming Hogsmeade trips.

"I just want to get inside Honeydukes," Ron was saying, "it's this sweetshop, where they've got everything..." Ron continued to describe Honydukes and I allowed myself a brief wander into my own memories of Hogsmeade and Honeydukes. Our first visit and being overawed by the village, sneaking there when we technically weren't supposed to whenever we fancied a butterbeer or had run out of sugar quills. The excitement whenever Zonko's had something new out and our eagerness to experiment with it as soon as possible.

"But Hogsmeade's a very interesting place, isn't it?" interrupted Hermione eagerly, "in iSites of Historical Sorcery/i it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack's supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain-" but Ron was clearly not listening and Hermione once again reminded me of myself. There were so many times I had tried to impart some fascinating fact I had just read but was ignored or teased by the others, although Peter had always at least tried to listen. I felt a familiar rush of affection towards the small, brave boy, and resisted the old urge to correct Hermione about the Shrieking Shack. It seems James was right; I was born a teacher.

Hermione gave up on Ron and turned to Harry "Won't it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?"

"'Spect it will," replied Harry, sounding utterly dejected. "You'll have to tell me when you've found out. I can't go. The Dursleys didn't sign my permission form." I felt a small surge of anger towards these Dursleys; not just for refusing to sign Harry's form, but also for abusing him in the way Professor McGonagall told me they had. I heard the tone of voice Harry used to describe his relatives, the people whose house he had lived in for the first eleven years of his life; there was no affection, no love there.

The train journeyed steadily on and a few hours later a new boy entered the compartment "Well look who it is," the boy said in a lazy drawl, "Potty and the Weasel. I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley. Did your mother die of shock?" Ron stood up to face the boy and I almost stood up as well but instead gave a small snort and sure enough the boy noticed my presence.

"Who's that?"

"New teacher," replied Harry coolly, "what were you saying, Malfoy?" that would be Lucius Malfoy's son then, and from what I had just heard he seemed as nasty a piece of work as his father. I made a mental note to keep an eye on Malfoy. I heard him leave with some satisfaction; obviously he wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight under a teacher's nose. Ron then made some sort of gesture, detailing what he wanted to do the Malfoy boy, and, although I silently agreed, I felt it best to continue to feign sleep.

The train started to slow down, then stopped with a thud that dislodged the luggage from the racks. The lamps went out with a small ipffft/i and we were plunged into total darkness. A familiar cold swept over me and I was found myself unable to move from my seat. More students came piling into the compartment, tripping over each other in the darkness, I sat in the corner and listened to them.

"Who's that?"

"Ginny?"

"Hermione?"

"What are you doing?"

"I was looking for Ron-"

"Come in and sit down-"

"Not here! I'm here!"

"Ouch!"

"Quiet!" I said, I had finally managed to move myself to take action and I quickly created a small fire in my hand, which just about illuminated the compartment, "stay where you are," I said and I got up but the door slid open before I could reach it. I had been right, it was a Dementor.

"None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go." I told it, as authoritatively as possible but it didn't move and so, concentrating as hard as I could on when I realised my friends would accept me for who I was, I tried to conjure a patronus. It was feeble and had no shape, but it did the job and drove the Dementor away.

"Harry! Harry! Are you all right?" Harry had fallen off his seat, I immediately dug in my coat to find some chocolate. I broke it up and gave a large piece to Harry.

"What happened? Where's that – that thing? Who screamed?" said Harry who was now looking around nervously

"No one screamed," said Ron

"What was that thing?" Harry asked me,

"A Dementor," I replied, "one of the Dementors of Azkaban." Everyone was now staring at me and I began to feel slightly uncomfortable, until I realised that they were waiting for me to do something; after all, I was a teacher.

"Eat," I told Harry, who had been just holding his piece of chocolate, "it'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me," I strolled past Harry as casually as I could, trying to give the impression I was in complete control of the situation and walked down the corridor towards the driver. I then realised I had gone in the wrong direction and had to sneak back past Harry's compartment. Luckily they didn't see me.

I had a feeling I knew what memory the Dementors had made Harry relive, who he had heard screaming, why they affected him so badly. I felt fiercely protective of him and angry towards all those who had tried to hurt him, Voldemort, Sirius, the Dursleys and even that Malfoy boy who had tried to bully Harry earlier. I wondered if Harry made most people feel this protective of him, he seemed to have won Minerva's heart, even if she would never let it show and Dumbledore seemed to have more than the usual teacher and student relationship with him. I allowed myself a small laugh as I imagined Snape, by some miracle, becoming fond of Harry and Snape's face, twisted in pure hatred popped into my head. This was going to be an interesting year.

As I walked I realised I was determined to do all I could to help, teach and perhaps even befriend Harry, who was, even if he hadn't heard of them, the last true Marauder.


End file.
